Translation of abstract (English)

Our knowledge about Minoan culture and its religious activities is almost entirely based on archaeological research and comparison of findings and parallels in other prehistoric mediterranean cultures. Amongst the most important sources for our understanding of Minoan culture are the „peak sanctuaries“, which are crucial for our understanding of any religious actions in Bronze age Crete. By comparing Minoan religion and rituals with what we know from other religions that are based on nature or come from an agricultural society, a narrow archaeological view can be expanded into a more pictorial and therefore more detailed imagination that focuses more on the activity that happened in the sanctuaries than on their actual remains. Peak sanctuaries also offer the opportunity to approach, by their function as places for trading and centres of administration, an insight into what one might call a Minoan common identity that, as we know, politically never existed.